


The Plan

by Psychopersonified



Series: Kidnapped!Q [9]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Banter, Established Relationship, Humour, Kidnapped!Q Series, M/M, Plot, Science, Scotland, Site B
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 12:09:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28956246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Psychopersonified/pseuds/Psychopersonified
Summary: Season 2 of Kidnapped!Q series.Set a year after the events of 'Intermission'. Life moves on, Q does his best to return to normal.The pandemic stuck causing some necessary restructuring inside MI6 - some are taking it better than others.The Team picks up where they left off trying to bring Alistair to justice.
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Series: Kidnapped!Q [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1782712
Comments: 18
Kudos: 65





	The Plan

**Author's Note:**

> Prologue 
> 
> Season 2 opens over a year after Intermission. SiteB is the alternate Q-Branch lab set underneath Greenwich Naval College. ‘Brekkie’ gives you a glimpse of the site and the 00Q routine since then. 
> 
> It’s set during this pandemic because I thought it would be more relatable and I liked the idea that the Double-0s are grounded and have to learn to adjust to civilian life and a new way of conducting espionage (just like how the rest of us are having to cope with new ways of living our life and work). Some are doing better than others. 
> 
> The original idea was to have the Shadow Network AI be this nebulous entity that gave Q some omnipresent powers. But along the way, ‘Herbie’ came to life as a character and was much more relatable and brought much lightheartedness to the other series. I’ve tortured Q enough in this one…. maybe. No, I lie. There will be some pain later. What is a story without at least one tear-jerker scene, right? 
> 
> Do read my “Life of Herbie” series as it will introduce you to the character of Q’s AI in physical form as a spiderbot with interchangeable ‘shells’. The plan is to pull all those threads and character development into this story as it unfolds. 
> 
> I have the framework of how this season pans out - just need the motivation to write it all. 😉

**——**

**SIS Building - Double-O Bullpen**

“Feet off my desk Trevalyen,” Bond smacks his tablet against Alec’s calf and gestures for his colleague to vacate his chair. 

Alec obeys but doesn’t take his eyes off the game on his Switch. Instead of retreating to his ‘side’ of the office, he plants himself on the edge of 007’s desk - still clicking furiously on his portable game box.

Bond starts to clean up the papers on his desk, preparing to leave for the week, “What is it?” Knowing Alec, there’s a reason for his persistent presence in his space. 

Alec sighs but doesn’t answer immediately. The soundtrack from his game grows increasingly urgent, urging him to take action. A second later, digitally reproduced sounds of collision signal the end of Alec’s attempt at concurring his alternate realm. 

006 tosses his game box onto the tabletop. “How are you getting on with the kids?” he asks without preamble, referring to the techs that make up their Digital Remote Intelligence Team. 

“Fine,” Bond continues packing up. 

“Helps that you’re boinking their Chief Boff.”

“Alec…” Bond urges him to get to the point. 

“I think…,” Alec makes an indecipherable gesture with his hands, ”…I’ve gotten off on the wrong foot with my team.” 

Bond pauses feeding the shredder to regard his friend, “Were there tears?”

“Nah.. I’m fine,” 006 waves off his concern. 

“Not yours,” 007 rolls his eyes, “…theirs.”

A lightbulb goes off, “Ah! About that…,” Alec is about to launch into what would have undoubtedly been a magnificent soliloquy defending his innocence when Head of Human Resources, Helena Renfield pokes her head around the door.

In a tone that brokered no negotiation, she politely demands, “Commander Trevalyen… and you too Commander Bond. Do you have time for a chat in my office?”

Both agents stare at her owlishly. Like boys caught in the middle of lighting firecrackers in the bathroom. 

“Now; if you please,” Helena adds. 

——

**_Later…_ **

“Sorry I’m late,” Bond says in lieu of a proper greeting. His hand grabs the back of Q’s chair before moving to cup the back of the younger man’s head - just the briefest of affectionate gestures. Bond doesn’t wait for an acknowledgment before plonking himself into the seat next to Q. He seems somewhat put out. 

They (The Scooby gang) are having Friday after work drinks at the suitably naval-themed Trafalgar Tavern, close to Site B. Tanner and Moneypenny had accompanied M onsite for visit earlier that afternoon whilst Bond was stuck in HQ - serving out detention so to speak. To top it off, had to fight 40 minutes of traffic from Vauxhall to get site B. 

The other three were just finishing their first pint. 

“Got called to the Disciplinary Teacher’s office,” he felt the need to offer some explanation for his tardiness but his tone conveyed that he did not want to discuss the matter. 

“Human Resources? Hmm… someone’s in trouble. What did they want with you?” there is a teasing tone in Eve’s probing question. The three turn to him expectantly. 

Bond sneers, “Helena’s signed me up for compulsory ‘Dynamic Leadership Training’ along with Trevalyen. Three times a week for the next two months…,” he exhales. What a waste of his time! “I need a drink.”

Q can feel the coiled frustration radiating from him. Adjusting to ‘civilian’ life was difficult for many of the agents. Inconvenient things like accountability and playing by the rules, not sitting well with them. Their job description changed overnight, years of espionage training, working independently with little supervision did not translate immediately to being a good manager. He slides the second pint he was just starting on over to Bond.

Bond gives a short shake of his head, “… Something stronger.” The pint goes back over to Q’s side. 

“Actually, that will do—,” Bond slides it back and takes a huge swig before setting down the glass a little too emphatically back down on the table. “This is all Alec’s fault,” he starts unexpectedly, licking the foam off his upper lip. Despite indicating earlier that he didn’t want to talk about it, he suddenly felt differently. Maybe Dr. Epstien’s advice about venting as a coping mechanism was worth trying - and he did have a captive audience at the moment. 

“Apparently, fear-based leadership has no place in the modern workplace. The bastard managed to push an analyst in his team to tears and his teammates reported it to HR. I was just unfortunate enough to be in his company when Helena came looking to have a ‘chat’ with him,” Bond claims indignantly. 

Then he launches into a tale of how Alec made an already sensitive situation worse with his attempts at deflecting accountability which annoyed Helena even further because of how it demonstrated that he failed to see the consequences of his actions upon others, which was unacceptable in his management position. And just because he and Alec shared the same measure of notoriety, she decided that it would be best to preemptively sentence him along with Alec. To which he replied that it was unfair and that his team was doing swimmingly under his guidance. To which Helena had the pointed rebuttal that his latest review, whilst managing to marginally pass, contained several carefully packaged indirect rebukes of his leadership style by his less than satisfied team and therefore he was going to attend a _nd pass_ the course - End. Of. Discussion. 

“My leadership skills are perfectly adequate - thank you very much,” he finishes ripping up the paper coaster in frustration. 

The other three exchange _looks_. 

Eve couldn’t pass up the perfect setup, “If by ‘adequate’ you mean, taking nothing seriously, underpinned by a general air of smugness, and a reluctance to engage in any sort of communication with your team? Then yes, I concur.” 

That stung a bit… He did not slog through 40minutes of traffic, only to have his _friends_? _people_? rain on his pity party. 

“I’ve been on the receiving end of your attempts at _leadership_ ,“ Eve points out. 

“When have I _dared_?” he feigns affront. 

“Turkey?” 

Her answer gives him pause as he recalls his conduct during the mission, “… Oh yes… “ Bond muses in amusement after a second. “Did you genuinely miss? Or did you shoot me _because_ of that?” cheeky smile. 

“Either way, you deserved it,” Eve retorts unfazed. Bond knows better than to turn to Q or Tanner to defend him after that. 

Adequately chastised, he resorts to changing the subject instead. “How was the inspection?”

“Generally, went well. M was happy with the progress. We’re finally connected up to Greenwich Power Station, so we’ll be fully up and running in a week or two.” The direct connection to the power station was one of the reasons Q chose this location - the underground tunnels ran direct to the facility, no above groundworks were necessary. Which meant that wiring could be done in secret. 

The Shadow Network’s rapid expansion of drew massive amounts of power - several sets of semi-secret, super-efficient underwater tidal generators located at various points along the river harvested the power of the Thames and were more reliable than solar in London’s notoriously poor weather, but depending on a single power source would be short-sighted and madness, considering that the Shadow AI is the UK’s first line of defense against cyber attacks. The gas-powered turbines serve as a contingency, a rapid backup generator that can kick on quickly regardless of the weather. 

“He wasn’t happy about the rat though,” Tanner reminds them. 

“Rats? I thought the Turtles took care of it?” asks a curious Bond.

The turtles are Site B’s swarm robots. Four lab version Herbies, the size and shape of large upside down salad bowls that patrol and maintain the maze of tunnels and chambers. Aptly named after the Ninja Turtles for obvious reasons ie. location (tunnels) - they time to time also carried out pest control duties. Rats have a tendency to gnaw on wires and cables and Herbie hates them with a logical passion. 

These larger bots have a payload of multi-function tools of which included a mini taser that they use to dispatch rats and mice quickly and humanely. Then as macabre as it seems, they then drag the carcasses to a collection point for the humans to dispose off. 

Before the techs programmed a predefined collection area, the turtles tended to leave the carcasses under the desks or chairs of their favourite humans, which led to many a morning surprise. And they would regularly wait for the human to arrive at work and then beep and blink proudly until the human acknowledged the gift with praise before trundling off into the tunnels again. 

Q smiles as he recalls the incident earlier, “Mikey caught a rat while M was walking through the server chamber and thought it would make a great gift for a high ranking human….,” Q continues to tell him about how the robot deposited the body of an offensively large rat at M’s feet and then waited expectantly until the human bestowed it the customary praise.

“You should have seen M’s face when he said ‘Good robot. Dismissed.’” Tanner paints a picture for him. 

All four break into sputtering, wheezing laughter. Mallory’s interactions with Herbie have so far been stilted and needlessly formal like he wasn’t sure to treat Herbie like a trained animal or a child. ‘More function, less personality’ was M’s usual criticism of Q’s robots. 

“It’s like he still doesn’t get it, no matter how many times I’ve tried to explain. The fact that he still thinks I have any control over Herbie’s personality development reveals that he hasn’t grasped the central principle of AI development...,” Q could go on forever with his rant if no one stops him. 

Bond steps in to change the subject again, “Anyway... I’m starving, have you ordered?” 

——

**Monday - SIS Building HQ**

H.E.R.B.I.E

“Hyper Expandable Radial-Based Intelligence Emulation.” 

All eyes are on Q expectantly. He stares back blankly at the three pairs of eyes, not counting Bond who was seated behind him. 

“H.E.R.B.I.E - Hyper Expand—“

“—Yes I heard you the first time. But what is this about?” he cuts Maya off before she can repeat the ridiculous acronym.

007’s three-person DIRM-Team (Digital Remote Intelligence Management Team) another horrid acronym they’ve given themselves had called for a meeting to discuss updates about their investigation into $PECTRE and possible plans to thwart its growing influence. 

Over a year after the initial harrowing attack and the botched rescue, Alistair was still at large. The last they heard of him was in Hong Kong, though he’d since long moved on. He’d managed to rectify Qs hastily kludged together hack and smoothed over the kerfuffle that resulted. Publicly, his half-brother Kim Min Jun who was the face of $PECTRE denounced the incident and subsequent attack on $PECTRE as industrial espionage and vowed to continue the work and strengthen his Proof-of-Stake model cryptocurrency. 

As part of the exercise to shore up investor confidence, $PECTRE opened up the code for audit, not to the general public of course, but to select cybersecurity experts. It served to strengthen security - Alistair's code, as brilliant as it was contained multiple weak points that he could not manage by himself. $PECTRE eventually contracted a reputable cybersecurity company XNWare to manage the network - a third-party stamp of approval from them gave the assurance that the network was sound.

The publicity strategy worked. Investors, ever eager to forgive him with so much money at stake continued to flock to the currency even though growth was now at a more sedate pace. 

“XNWare is expanding rapidly, they’ve acquired 6 companies since then. Mostly startups, but all specialising in cybersecurity and network management. Word along the corporate grapevine is that they’re keenly interested in AI tech that will boost their security capabilities,” Maya, the junior IT analyst explains. 

“If we manage to get someone inside XNWare, we could get a peek at $PECTRE’s source code. We can then insert our own trojan direct into the code and let that propagate through their system.” 

“I see where you’re going with this, but they’re not going to just let any random newbie access to client code. They’re going to guard that code and they’re going to QC the hell out of their version builds,” Q counters. 

Lach another fresh analyst, so young he really did still have spots, “We thought of that - planting someone on the inside undercover, playing the long con. But it would take too long to gain their trust. So we were thinking what if we let them come to us?”

“Is this where you tell me it’s got something to do with Herbie?” definitely not liking where this is headed. 

Josh, the baby designer of Q-branch but the most senior in this team, speaks up next, “Hear us out sir. Pushing our way in would call up too much resistance. Instead, what not offer them something they really want, something they simply can't pass up on. The next generation in cybersecurity.”

Pause as they let the words sink in. 

Q’s eyes widen once he gets it, “NO. We are not using the Shadow Network as bait. Do you even comprehend the risk we’d be putting ourselves in?” Q casts his glare around him, at everyone in the room. 

The junior team doesn’t dare meet his eyes. But Bond does. His blue eyes are steely but his expression is calm. He meets Q’s glare with calm determination. He’s already decided the plan would go ahead. This meeting was just a formality.

“James I trust you, but this plan—” Q begins earnestly. 

“—We’ll obfuscate the code. We’ll show them only what they expect to see. But in reality, they’ll be testing a black box that they won’t know how it works. It just needs to be compelling enough to let us into their facility and start testing integration protocols.” 

“Obfuscated code? Black box, integration protocols…. who have you been talking to?” Q questions him disbelieving. 

“Little guy explained it all to me,” Bond shrugs. 

“Herbie? You’ve been having technical discussions with the AI?” Q is incredulous. 

“With some help from them,” Bond gestures to his junior team. He’s a little offended, they might consider him old, but give him some credit. Yes, he had to google every fourth word, but still, he was making an effort. 

The team is uncomfortable - Josh shifting from one foot to the other, Maya looks anywhere but straight at them and Lach buries his nose in the screen of his laptop. This is turning out to be a domestic and they’re getting pulled into it. 

“And Herbie told you it’s a good idea did it?” 

“It made sense to me,” Bond shrugs, trying not to get the AI in trouble. 

Q sighs, of course, it made sense. Frankly, it was the sort of plan that Q would have come up with himself if he hadn’t been so busy setting up Site B. But since when did the AI emancipate itself to start making these kinds of decisions unilaterally? He feels like Marlin, Nemo’s dad - trying to wrestle in a brilliant and over-enthusiastic child with a disability. Herbie could probably outwit any human in cyberspace, but it still can’t figure out not to throw its spiderbot shell into a boiling vat of oil out of curiosity when James is trying to do a fry up

“So it will work then?” Bond presses forward gently, rousing Q out of his thoughts. 

Q nods cautiously, “But I want safeguards. We’re not carrying hard drives full of Herbie’s code into XMWare. We set up back door access and have the Shadow Network inject automated scripts that make it look like an AI is in charge. Control at arms-length. Then we nuke it when its over,” He’s not making the mistake of establishing a direct into a foreign network again, no matter how good he thinks his containment protocols are. 

“As long as it works, you decide the details,” Bond says to him. Honestly, he didn’t understand all of that, he’ll have to ask Herbie later. 

Q seemed somewhat placated by that, “How do we convince them to buy into our tech? They’re not going to give us two minutes if we don’t have credibility.”

Lach snaps his head up from his laptop and smiles, “We’ve got that sorted.” He launches an honest to goodness power-point presentation. Q makes a mental note to tell the boy not to draw detailed espionage plans on his laptop even if he’s not a field agent. Really what has Bond been teaching them? Nothing probably. Helana was probably right to send him on that leadership course. 

Their plan as it turns out was to have Bond pose as a Scottish Baron, Lord Ballencrieff - this team comes up with the most ridiculous names. They are making the claim that the program is based on declassified military technology. They were going to play it as a failed military project that was unsuitable for the original use. The military did not see the potential in it, but Ballencrieff did. So he bought it for tuppence and created this startup. That’s why not much has been published about the tech until recently. They’ll cite the paper by ‘Collin Mitchel’ and the symposium at NATO as an example of a similar concept, except that his version was well past conceptual. 

The title was meant to give the impression that Lord Ballencrieff was part of the establishment, an old boy ex-naval officer - legitimising his claim of access to declassified Ministry of Defense tech. 

Q had to admit, they were on to something. 

——

Meeting over, Q goes over to Eve’s office to collect Herbie. Eve is sitting at her desk, cooing softly over the spiderbot, “Aren’t you a clever little fella?” 

Q walks up to them, “Will everyone stop thinking Herbie is ‘little’? The AI takes up a quarter of a football field in server space! It’s just decided to squeeze itself into the perfect sized physical package that compels humans to want to take care of it. It’s got you eating out of its spindly little… legs!”

“Still cute tho,” Eve quips nonplussed without looking away from the spiderbot. She can _feel_ Q roll his eyes. 

Herbie is working on colouring in a picture - smudging magic marker ink all over its metallic shell before ‘body painting’ it onto the page in some sort of performance art. 

Eve keeps a colouring book in her desk for when it’s her turn to babysit. She’s tried a few things to keep the AI busy, including Sudoku - but found that mathematical puzzles bored the AI as it was too easy and it lost interest immediately. Arts however still puzzled the AI and colouring is something that kept Herbie sufficiently occupied to stop it distracting Q with questions when he’s in a meeting. 

“When did you get all curmudgeonly?”

Q throws his hands up in the air before crossing them under his armpits in a sulk. “I don’t know! Maybe I’m just stressed. 

“The idea of using Herbie as bait not sitting well?” Eve asks. Knowing Q, the little outburst earlier was meant for himself. 

Q deflates, “I suppose… “

“You said it yourself, Herbie isn’t little. And fully capable of taking care of himself and then some.”

“There’s still a risk. The decoy source code, as obfuscated as it is, will still have to contain enough real code to for the software to work/make sense to their tech people. There’s always a chance that they can pick it apart.”

:: Herbie clever. Decryption unlikely ::

“See? Herbie’s confident.”

“Oh yes believe the bot but not the architect.”

“Not when the architect is being overprotective.”

With a final flourish, Herbie interrupts their back and forth with a cheery chirp :: Eve like? ::

“Oh yes, very good,” Eve says as she examines the colourful squiggles and smudges. It’s still not quite inside the lines but there’s definitely an improvement. “Oh! You missed a spot!” Eve points to the blank area behind the bot.

Herbie hop-turns around, looking for the spot. Then scutters over to rectify it - scooting over the spot with its underbelly to smudge colour over the area. 

“Perfect! Do you want to practice drawing now?”Eve asks, switching out the book for a blank piece of paper. “How about we draw George the Gecko wearing a tutu and riding a bicycle?” Q had told her that joining seemingly unrelated concepts and challenging Herbie to put them together into a functional object helps the AI with its natural speech comprehension. 

Q watches as his AI start to scratch out a childish picture with ink from Eve’s stamp pad, then accidentally smudging the wet ink because Herbie still can’t figure out how to not step in them before the ink dries. 

Brilliant, but so, so much to learn at the same time. Maybe he’s the one that needs to believe Herbie is much more capable than the child-like personality suggests. Then again, perhaps Herbie’s inherited his dangerous overconfidence, he remembers what it was like to believe you’re the smartest person in the room… until one day you’re not.

——

**_Ballencriefff, Scotland_ **

Bond admires the collection in the gunroom of the castle. A fine collection indeed, maybe he can get the groundskeeper to let him shoot some of them later. 

Ballencrieff Castle is the setting for their little play. Now a rental home for the rich, it's been temporarily commandeered for MI6 use. The place is more manor house than a castle, the eastern turret is the only remains of the ancient castle. The rest of the place was mostly rebuilt in the Georgian era. 

He’s familiarising himself with the history of the place, after all, he’s supposed to be playing the lord of the manor. He’s got the requisite Land Rover, the dogs, and has grown a beard to match his rugged Scottish lord persona. He’s even dressed the part, cable-knit sweaters, Harris tweed jacket - neither he would have been caught dead in, in London. Somewhat excessive Q might say but supposes Bond was just exploring his roots. 

Eve is following him around, she’s been roped in to play his Head of Marketing - drumming up hype for both Lord Ballencriefff and the technology in his possession. She’d spent weeks smooching virtually with the Senior Executives of XMWare and managed to get them a chartered flight direct into Scotland and a promise of an expedited quarantine. All this VIP treatment served to bolster Lord Ballencrieff’s credentials and legitimacy. 

The rest of Bond’s team is buzzing about the castle setting the place up. Fine touches here and there to suggest he’s not only a respected peer, but a successful businessman. Stacks of folders, financial magazines, company reports, and prospectus are arranged around his borrowed office. Family pictures dotted around the manor and other personal touches. 

The cellar of the castle has been cleared out too, to make way for a makeshift computer engineering lab. The rough-hewn space now housing state of the art hardware aimed to impress. 

With little to do, he’s getting into character so to speak. Strutting about the place like he owned it - something he does on a daily basis anyway, hardly a stretch really. 

The estate comes with a large friendly calico cat that lives in the old picturesque farmhouse - now servants' quarters on the grounds. No individual professes to own the cat, she just showed up one day and decided she lives there and so she does. 

She’s winding herself around Bond’s legs, demanding attention. Bond picks her up like a child and she relaxes against his shoulder. She rubs her face against his beard and starts to purr. 

“Are you even listening??” Eve complains. She’s been reading out the script and schedule for the next day, but it’s hard to compete with the other female that wants 007’s attention. 

“Hmm?... Aye, of course.” 

“You’re seriously sticking with the accent?” Eve scrunches her face at him. “Bit much don’t you think?”

“First rule of undercover work lassy - commit to the part,” Bond impresses it upon her. 

“Call me _lassy_ one more time and I swear, I’ll shoot you again.” 

Lord Ballencrieff doesn’t apologise. Just scowls and turns away whilst gesturing with his free hand for her to continue her briefing. Why can’t anyone see this from his point of view? This is the most fun he’s had all year, finally being able to get out from behind the desk. Bonus: He gets to skip out on the stupid leadership course for a couple of weeks. Trevelyan can rot on his own. 

——

**_Later that evening..._ **

“Ah sir, His Lordship requests your presence in his chambers,” Josh informs with a smirk as they pass in the hallway on the second floor of the manor house. The one that leads to the office with the master’s bedroom attached. 

Q quirks an eyebrow, “Does he now? Were those his exact words or are you paraphrasing?”

Josh turns, walking backwards briefly to confirm, “Exact. Words.” 

“Right,” Q acknowledges - his consonants sounding especially sharp when he’s annoyed. 007 is a dead man. 

—

The door to the bedroom is ajar when he gets there. He pushes it open without knocking, “Josh said you were looking for me?” Q says as he enters the bedchamber.

007’s face lights up when he sees Q, “Shouldn’t you be addressing me as your Lordship?” 

Q regards him with narrowed eyes, “Why?” He sets down his tablet and a stack of folders down on the desk by the window. 

“You’ll have to say it tomorrow, might as well practice now… so you don’t trip yourself up,” Bond suggests helpfully as he slinks nearer, crowding Q against the ornate desk. He’s wearing an open dark blue velvet dressing robe, shirtless underneath and soft flannel bottoms that hang dangerously low. 

He starts to unzip Q’s blue cardigan before slipping his hands inside to knead the side of Q’s ribcage through the material of his shirt. Q’s eyelids flutter shut. “Come on, just try it. It won’t hurt,” Bond coaxes softly, just above a whisper. They’re pressed together, swaying a little in the embrace.

“You’re a right tosser you know that?” Q tells him off, eyes still closed. Despite the harsh words, he’s completely relaxed in the embrace. He feels Bond’s warm hands creep down further along the length of his body, kneading all the way down his back. A little lower and Bond captures his prize and gives them a good squeeze.

“James…!” Q hisses a warning. But his reflexive move to get away from the offending hands send him pressing up against the man instead - their hips grinding. 

Bond smirks, ignoring the warning. “Where are you sleeping tonight?” his voice dropping low and gravelly. 

“None of your business—,” Q retorts impertinently. That earns him another sound squeeze. “—Oh!”

“As the Lord of the household, I think you’ll find it _is_ my business.” 

“You mean the lecherous old git that preys on innocent young men?”

“You flatter yourself. Neither innocent, nor very young anymore…”

Q takes mild offence to that, “And who oversaw to the complete debauching of my innocence? Well, fuck you too.”

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do?” Bond chuckles. Then he pulls himself together to plead gently, “Stay here tonight. Bed’s huge.” He gestures to the enormous four-poster bed with a jerk of the head. The bed was indeed huge, all gilded woodwork and heavily embroidered bedclothes. 

Q avoids the incoming kiss by turning his head away, “Didn’t the Queen once stayed here on a visit?” 

“Yes, I think,” Bond murmurs against the corner of Q’s mouth where the missed kiss landed, trying to get him in the right frame of mind. “Anyway not the current one. Queen Victoria, I was told.”

Q sputters, pushing him away, “I am NOT doing anything in a bed that Queen Victoria once slept!”

“I’m sure they’ve changed the bedding since then!” he laughs at Q’s reticence.

“Ugh!” Q twists away to pick up his paperwork and tablet and heads for the door. Bond intercepts, grabbing the items and depositing them on a side table. Then turns back around to pick Q up and toss him onto the bed. 

“James! Mmph—” 

Bond then jumps in alongside, making the mattress bounce and the ornamental pillows fly off every which direction. 

“You have to admit, it is rather comfy,” Bond says after, propped up on his elbow on his side. 

Q doesn’t answer. He has his eyes closed, enjoying the dense silk sheets - luxuriously smooth under his palm. His resolve melting rapidly. 

A shadow falls over him followed by a heavy but comfortable weight settling on top. A bearded chin grazes his jaw. Q’s not too wild about James’s latest grooming choice, but the agent insists it was integral to the part he was playing. 

“Hmmm…” Q sighs contented. The fingers in his hair, scratching his scalp are sending little shocks of sensual pleasure through him. 

A few minutes of nuzzling later, “So you’re staying the night, yes?” 

“Fine. We’re not doing anything though!” 

“Alright. Alright…,” James seemingly agrees to the terms, before counter-proposing, “…nothing too messy anyway.” Right after that, he launches an all-out assault on Q's neck. 

“James—!” Q sputters, trying unsuccessfully to get away.

——

**_Next day…._ **

“What made you acquire the tech?” Andrew the Senior Technology VP of XNWare asks. 

“Och, laddie… the battleground’s moved. Bullets and bombs replaced by bits and bytes. I’m not a programmer, but I know where this century is headed. Woebegone those who are unprepared, aye?

Dinnae yer ken? There’s always money to be made in warfare whichever side yer on,” the baron delivers the last statement with a knowing smirk. 

The team listens in on Bond’s performance as Lord Ballencrieff and what a performance it was. He’s played up the image of a gregarious but straight-talking, ex-navy Scotsman to the extreme, shocking everyone by pulling out a Scottish accent seemingly out of nowhere. 

Despite the affable air, there was a schizophrenic aspect to Bond’s portrayal of Lord Ballencrieff - a darker side. One minute he’ll be singing charming sea shanties as he drives his guests around the grounds of the estate in a cart pulled by the farm’s draft horses; and the next he would drop suggestively sinister bombs like the one he just said. 

It was causing the junior members of Bond’s team to look to him for reassurance. “He’s cracked it hasn’t he?” Maya asks, concerned. “Live long enough to become the villain?”

Q guesses he’s basing his portrayal on the multitude of megalomaniacal examples he’s encountered over the years. Q concludes that Bond is having entirely too much fun playing Lord Ballencrieff that he’s trying to string this out for as long as possible. 

“007, you might want to ease up on the diabolical chatter. It’s scaring the young ones,” Q suggests into the comms lightly. 

And its not just his team, their American guests are starting to feel uncomfortable, but Lord Ballencrieff smooths over the situation with a charming saying, “Well, mony a mickle maks a muckle! My father always said. This little project is me mickle.”

“But enough of all this talk, would yer like to have a look around the lab?” his lordship rises to his feet and offers magnanimously. His guests follow him out of the office eagerly.

Down in the converted cellar, the pseudo-lab team prepares for their part of the performance. Q resists the urge to run his fingers through his neatly gelled hair (Eve’s doing) - instead, he straightens his glasses and adjusts his collar to make the stubble burn he’s developed overnight less obvious. Showtime. 

——-

“As you can see, H.E.R.B.I.E reroutes the network so normal functions are not interrupted then it quarantines the virus or vulnerability bin realtime - of course you can program to flag the infection instead if you prefer human oversight. The system is also capable of automatic patches and removal of foreign code.” 

Q is running live demonstrations of what their custom ‘solution’ can do. The tech executives have brought along a test setup, complete with a simulated network and test viruses to gauge the tech.

“Custom silicone means our processing overheads are significantly lower than any off the shelf solutions,” Q continues. He has their undivided attention. 

Hours later, they’ve tried multiple attack vectors and methods, but H.E.R.B.I.E parries them efficiently and competently, tailoring the response to the type of attack it was facing. Judging from the looks of things, the executives are resisting creaming in their pants. Q’s not sure if he’s comfortable with that. 

Near hour three and they are packing up. Lord Ballencriefff returns to the lab. He has the castle’s calico cat in his arms as he lowers himself into a swivel chair. As he pets her soft fat belly, the heavy signet rings on his hand flash ostentatiously. He really did look like a comic book villain. 

He too notices the stunned air among his guests and hazards a guess as he strokes the purring calico, ”As you Americans say - Pretty neat huh?” 

Senior XNWare Executive Andrew tries his best to contain himself with a calm, “We’ll be in touch.”

——

Outside, once they’ve said their thanks and goodbyes to the Baron and his techies, the executives ask Eve for a private moment to make a call. Eve graciously points to the garden pavilion where they might shelter from the wet Scottish weather and make the call. 

Andrew dials in California, never mind that it was the crack of dawn, and puts the recipient on speaker. 

“You don’t get it, they have an AI… no no, a TRUE AI, or one very close to it. It’s almost organic in its … behaviour… yeah… yeah deep learning…. you should have seen it. It started out like a modular neural network when it was rooting out the test virus. Then once it had it contained and understood the code and purpose, the algorithms changed and it mounted a centrally coordinated response.”

There’s some skepticism coming from the other side of the line. 

“No Larry.. Larry… Listen to me, it _self_ -integrated into the system. We barely had to start integration protocols. It fucking read the manual on its own,” Exec #2 argues. 

“Best I can tell, it’s a multi-framework neural architecture. Hyper adaptable…. yeah some ridiculous name like H.E.R.B.I.E. I kid you not, It decimated the virus in under and hour… yes ..yup… of course we’ll need to run more robust tests…” Exec #3 interjects.

“I think we need to setup another meeting ASAP. The IP is for sale or licensing, but the Baron is willing to discuss a complete acquisition including the engineers. Honestly, with a system like that, I’d take the engineers as well. 

“Why does he want to sell? He’s a Baron, he’s not interested in running a company… I don’t know! What do blue-bloods like to do? Shoot grouse or pheasant or other.”

By the end of the call, they are all in agreement - what they’ve been offered is far too enticing to pass up without proper consideration. When they return to the car parked in front of the manor entrance, Andrew politely requests, “Evelyn, can I trouble you? I know it's short notice, but we’d like to arrange a second test as early as possible - next week at our headquarters if you can make that happen.”

Eve beams at him like the cat that got the cream, “Of course Andrew, I’m sure we can arrange something.” 

———————

Bond waits out the ominous pause after calling in a favour with Felix Leitner. He’s expecting to be chewed out by his CIA counterpart. Leitner did request over a year ago to share the exact teach they were now offering to XNWare. 

Right on cue - “You guys are such jackasses!” Felix growls. “Do you have any idea how badly we’re being pummelled here? You’ve likely heard of the SolarWinds hack? You didn’t think to offer some help?!” the CIA agent makes no attempt to hide his annoyance. 

Bond is feeling magnanimous today and lets Felix yell at him for another minute before bringing them back to the purpose of the call, “Are you done yelling at me, or are you going to help us take down $PECTRE?” 

More unintelligible growling from the American, then he grinds out, “What do you need? And what do we get for helping you guys out?” trust Felix to go hard on negotiations. 

“Travel and quarantine exemptions for a four-member team to San Jose. We’ll take precautions on our end but we need to be able to start work as soon as we land, before the plan has time to cool off. 

Also, I need you to start putting pressure on $PECTRE, shake investor confidence, limit collateral. If the plan works, a lot of people will lose money. Let's give the market some warning, if they choose to stay, unfortunately, there is nothing we can do.”

“Already on it, we’ve concluded investigations into Sciarra's drug and weapons cartel and the DOJ plans to subpoena $PECTRE’s records to find the buyers. The filing is going public next week. However… It’s going to be tough to match the anonymous accounts to the buyers by ourselves….” Felix leaves the last bit hanging. 

Bond takes the hint, “I’ll speak to M and the Architect to extend some… technical help.” 

“See that you do,” Felix answers just as cryptically. “Welcome to California.” 

———— TBC ———

Footnotes:

[AXIOS](https://www.axios.com/openai-artificial-intelligence-model-images-dall-e-5c977633-81cd-450c-8ce5-a30e5f0e90e7.html) \- Herbie’s drawing is based on this concept by AXIOS

[SolarWinds](https://www.cnet.com/news/solarwinds-hack-officially-blamed-on-russia-what-you-need-to-know/) \- Massive hack by Russians into the company’s Orion software that it sells to other companies including government agencies, giving hackers broad reach into infected systems. Google it if you’re interested. This method forms the basis of the attack Q plans to carry out on $PECTRE. 

Helena Renfield - in my mind is Gillian Anderson, cold, no-nonsense redhead with a bit of a history with Trevelyan. The only woman that he’s truly afraid of. Secretly, Alec probably gets turned on being castigated by her. No reason for the detail, just thought it added flavour. :)

Josh, we’ve met in earlier ‘episodes’ and series, the junior Q-Branch designer that drew Herbie’s early tattoos. 

Maya & Lach - junior IT analysts, fresh out of university. 


End file.
